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Testimony of Robert J. Garrity, Jr.
Deputy Assistant Director,
Records Management Division,
Federal Bureau of Investigation,
before the
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on International Terrorism,
Nonproliferation and Human Rights
Los Angeles, California
February 13, 2004
FBI Name Check Process
Certain visa applications require substantial interagency vetting prior to approval by the Department of State. The primary category is designated Visa Condor, relevant to certain individuals who are from designated countries and who satisfy additional criteria which may make them worthy of additional scrutiny. The FBI receives information on the applicants from the Department of State, which is entered into the FBI's National Name Check Program (NNCP). The information is searched against the FBI’s Universal Indices (UNI). The searches seek all instances of the individual's name and approximate date of birth, whether a main file name or reference. By way of explanation, a main file name is that of an individual who is the subject of an FBI investigation, whereas a reference is someone whose name appears in an FBI investigation. References may be associates, witnesses, co-conspirators, or victims whose name has been indexed for later retrieval. The names are searched in a multitude of combinations, switching the order of first, last, middle names, as well as combinations with just the first and last, first and middle, and so on. It also searches different phonetic spelling variations of the names, which is especially important, considering that many names in our indices have been transliterated from a language other than English.
If there is a match with a name in an FBI record, it is designated as a "Hit", meaning that the system has stopped on a possible match with the name being checked, but now a human being must review the file or indices entry to further refine the "Hit" on names. If the search comes up with a name and birth date match, it is designated an "Ident." An "Ident" is usually easier to resolve.
Approximately 85% of name checks are electronically returned as having "No Record" within 72 hours. A "No Record" indicates that the FBI's Central Records System contains no identifiable information regarding this individual. By agreement with the Department of State, partially due to our concern about the time factors in approving most visa requests, a “No Record” equates to a “No Objection” to the issuance of a visa. The substantive investigative divisions in the FBI, (i.e., the Counterterrorism Division (CTD), the Counterintelligence Division (CD), the Criminal Investigative Division (CID) and the Cyber Division (CyD)) do not review visa requests where there is no record of the individual. Duplicate submissions (i.e., identically spelled names with identical dates of birth submitted within the last 120 days) are not checked, and the duplicate findings are returned to State.
Because a name and birth date are not sufficient to positively correlate the file with an individual, additional review is required. A secondary manual name search usually identifies an additional 10% of the requests as having a "No Record", for a 95% overall "No Record" response rate. This is usually accomplished within a week of the request. The remaining 5% are identified as possibly being the subject of an FBI investigation. The FBI record must now be retrieved and reviewed. If the records were electronically uploaded into the FBI Automated Case Support (ACS) electronic record keeping system, it can be viewed quickly. If not, the relevant information must be retrieved from the existing paper record. Review of this information will determine whether the information is identified with the subject of the request. If not, the request is closed as a "No Record."
The information in the file is reviewed for possible derogatory information. Less than 1% of the requests are identified with an individual with possible derogatory information. These requests are forwarded to the appropriate FBI investigative division for further analysis. If the investigative division determines there is no objection to the visa request, the request is returned to the name check dissemination desk for forwarding to the Department of State. If there is an FBI objection to the visa request, the investigative division will prepare a written Security Advisory Opinion (SAO) and forward it to the Department of State. In reviewing these visa requests, the FBI has identified individuals attempting to enter the United States who are of serious concern to the FBI.
I want to emphasize to you that the FBI is sensitive to the impact that delays in visa processing may have on business, education, tourism, this country’s foreign relations, and worldwide perceptions of the United States. With these considerations in mind, the FBI is working diligently with the Department of State toward the common goal of improving the expediency and efficiency of the visa clearance process. At the same time, the consequences of the FBI’s mission on homeland security require that our name check process be primarily focused on an accurate and thorough result. This means that there are instances when the FBI’s review of a visa request must require as much time as needed to obtain an unequivocally correct result.
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Full version:
Testimony of Robert J. Garrity, Jr., Deputy Assistant Director of FBI 